by John Grey
We’re sitting in her kitchen,
the topic of the day:
how long it took for her father to die.
He almost outlived the hospice,
the nurses, the doctors,
the insurance company’s patience.
It’s raining hard outside
and in our conversation’s pauses.
She reckons it always does
when she brings up the old man’s name.
Her mother went in a lightning flash.
But he chained himself to breath and heartbeat
like some protestor at the White House fence.
She can’t understand why,
His pain was relentless.
A stroke took half his face,
made mockery of the rest of it.
He lost a leg below the knee
and most of his skull’s contents.
Our chat goes on and on.
It’s always that way when she’s
describing a man who went on and on.
I finally have to leave.
And procrastinators die when
there’s nothing left to postpone.
We hug just as the rain stops.
The sun comes out like the living do.